Common Reveals Childhood Molestation In New Book

Common is opening up about a very painful childhood experience in his new book Let Love Have the Last Word, the rapper/actor gives details of how he was molested by a relative during a family trip to Cleveland.

“At some point I felt Brandon’s hand on me,” he writes. “I pushed him away. I don’t remember saying a whole lot besides ‘No, no, no’…He kept saying ‘It’s okay, It’s okay,’ as he pulled down my shorts and molested me. After he stopped he kept asking me to perform it on him. I kept repeating ‘No’ and pushing him away,” he continued. “I felt a deep and sudden shame for what happened.”

Common says that he buried the painful memories and is still working through them.

“I just pushed the whole thing out of my head,” he writes. “Maybe it’s a matter of survival—Even now, two years after that flash resurgence of memories, as I’m writing, I’m still working through all of this in myself and with my therapist.”